11 April 2010

Ewwwwww....

As part of the 2nd grade content curriculum, students are supposed to learn about life cycles.  I think this is one of the most exciting things that 2nd graders learn because it has such hands-on potential and students love to learn about and see how different kinds of plants and animals grow.  This year I have made it a goal of mine to work on making my life cycles units a little more interesting for the kiddos.  We learned about pumpking life cycles in the fall and students sprouted their own pumpkin seeds.  They had a lot of fun with it.  This gave me confidence to take life cycles a bit further this spring with teaching them about butterfly life cycles.  So, I did a little research on how one might possibly acquire caterpillars to grow in the classroom, put in an order for a "butterfly kit," and yesterday...











caterpillars!!!

They are pretty gross.  And it has taken some getting used to.  I'm keeping them in my brother's room because I knew I would have nightmares about giant caterpillars crawling all over me if they were in my room.  (I had them delivered to my house just in case they arrived on a weekend and I'm glad I did.)  So far they are just kind of crawling around and producing some sort of silky material.  They will supposedly begin to enter their cocoons in a few days and then should emerge as butterflies about a week later.

I admit, this whole caterpillar business is a bit Silence-of-the-Lambs-y, but it's completely fascinating (if a bit yucky).  Plus, I know this is one of those things that my kids will always remember doing which makes it worth it.

Aren't they cute?